“Name’s Palmerstone.”

“It is much appreciated. If you will excuse me, I believe I see my cousin now.”

A surprisingly strong gnarled hand on his wrist stopped him as he was leaving. Dare looked down at the old man, once again startled by the vivacity of his eyes.

“Don’t forget what you’ve almost lost, boy. You’d be a fool to risk losing it again.”

Dare fought the urge to frown, baffled by what the old man said until he dismissed his words as the meanderings of an elderly mind. He mumbled something placating, and strode off in pursuit of his cousin.

An hour later Batsfoam found his employer in the company of a short, red-faced young man who looked hot and nervous.

“There’s nothing to it, man. Acting as a second is merely a formality.”

“All the same, I’m sure my wife wouldn’t like it. Still, a gentleman has his honor to think of.”

“Exactly,” Dare told Lord Beverly, and gave him an encouraging blow to the shoulder that almost dropped the younger man to his knees. “It’s a simple matter of pistols at dawn. All you have to do is arrange the location and be sure a surgeon is summoned.”

“In that case, I should be happy to act as your second.”

Dare thanked him, then turned to his servant with a cheery, “Cylinder done, Batsfoam? Excellent. Let’s be on our way, then.”

As Dare strolled out of the black-and-white marble tile entrance hall, Batsfoam thumping a respectable distance after him, he was stopped at the door by a familiar (if unwelcome) person.

“Ah, McGregor. I’m surprised to see you up and about. From what my sister said, it sounded as if you were at death’s door.”

Dare bared his teeth in what he hoped was a polite smile at his brother-in-law. “It was due to Charlotte’s most excellent skills that I stand before you today, Collins.”

Lord Collins sourly looked Dare over, his narrow eye flickering from the eye patch, to the arm that hung limply at his side. A tiny smile that looked remarkably like satisfaction turned into a smirk. “We are all, of course, most grateful to hear the reports of your imminent demise are premature. Still, I’m surprised to see you here. I had heard that you had been issued a challenge and failed to respond. I wouldn’t have thought that a man so cowardly would dare show his face in public.”

The fingers of Dare’s left hand clenched into a fist that ached to connect with Collins’s pompous face. “You can’t have it both ways, Collins. Either I was too ill to know there was a challenge, or I wasn’t ill at all and too much the coward to be seen in public. As it happens, I was ill—would you like to see what remains of my eye?—and was unaware my cousin had called me out.” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “This younger generation doesn’t seem to understand the finer points of calling a man out, points such as challenging a man in person rather than announcing the slight to everyone but the party concerned. Still, Geoffrey’s suffered some rather grievous circumstances in the past; I’m sure a little leniency is due him.”